I was really excited to see BriskBard by Salvador Díaz Fau as the April 2018 winner of the Cool App Contest. BriskBard is a browser, and a whole lot more. All the other browsers out there are just browsers, while BriskBards is a web browser for Windows that includes an email client, a media player, a news aggregator, a contact manager, an FTP client, a usenet newsreader, an IRC client, and several web developer tools. Did I mention it is also free? Think of it as your one stop shop for all your internet related tools.

BriskBard is built with Delphi 10.2 Tokyo along with Indy, Hunspell, OpenSSL, SQLite, and three HTML rendering engines. It includes both Blink (used by Chromium), Trident (used by Internet Explorer) and it’s own custom rendering engine. To take advantage of Blink/Chromium Salvador created the CEF4Delphi open source project which makes it easy for Delphi developers to use DCEF3 (made by Henri Gourvest).

When talking to Salvador about his use of Delphi in BriskBard he said:

Pascal was one of the first computer languages I learned as a kid and I was happy to see that Delphi was one of the IDEs used in my university. Delphi made my student life much easier because it uses a strongly typed language that allowed me to detect mistakes even before I built my programs. Many other features also helped me a lot, like the form designer, templates and automatic block completion but what I like most about Delphi is its speed. Simply put, Delphi is a Formula 1 car in the IDE race.

It’s not unusual to find open source projects written in other languages that take several hours to build using a high end computer. The worst case I’ve seen is a project that takes more than 6 hours using an Intel I7 with more than 16Gb of RAM. I can’t imagine how much time it would take to build that project in my 10 year old computer. In contrast, I’ve seen large Delphi projects built in less than 2 minutes on my old computer. People often neglect this but in my opinion it’s one of the most important features in Delphi. Delphi 10.2 can also be used to create cross-platform applications and includes countless new features that makes it one of the best IDEs in the market. Delphi is easy to learn, can create applications quickly and anyone can start using it thanks to the 100% discount in Delphi Starter Edition.

Interested in submitting for the Embarcadero’s Cool App contest? It’s open to any business or consumer application built with RAD Studio, Delphi or C++Builder. Embarcadero awards Cool App contest winners a $500 Amazon gift card and winning submissions are also highlighted on the company’s YouTube channel. For more information on the contest and a link to the submission form, click here.

Woll2Woll’s BEAM (Beacon External Advanced Mapper) makes RAD Server’s BeaconFence technology so much more flexible, and it is the March 2018 Winner of our Cool App contest. With RAD Server and BeaconFence it is easy to create an application that accurately tracks indoor location. Using the IDE map layout editor the developer places beacons on the floor plan, and then the app can accurately track the device location through the map.

Woll2Woll’s BEAM makes it easy to let your end-users edit and create their own maps for use with your BeaconFence app. This flexibility makes your apps so much more useful and powerful. You can build your app around BeaconFence without concern about the specifics of the location where it will be used. Then with BEAM it can be updated to based on beacon placement and the floor plan.

Beyond BeaconFence and FireMonkey BEAM also makes use of Woll2Woll’s amazing FirePower components to round out its user interface. According to Roy Wall of Woll2Woll software, “BEAM uses RAD Studio’s FireMonkey so it is a universal application that shines in both usability and performance . . . with a common codebase it is trivial to add advanced features with a single development team.” The great thing is BEAM is available on iOS, macOS, Windows, and Android, supporting touch input as well as keyboard and mouse. It is in all the major App stores.

BEAM was developed by Roy Woll of Woll2Woll software. You can find more information on Woll2Woll’s website and while you are there check out some of Woll2Woll’s other great products like FirePower.

Interested in submitting for the Embarcadero’s Cool App contest? It’s open to any business or consumer application built with RAD Studio, Delphi or C++Builder. Embarcadero awards Cool App contest winners a $500 Amazon gift card and winning submissions are also highlighted on the company’s YouTube channel. For more information on the contest and a link to the submission form, click here.

As you all may know, we made a business decision to "end of life" our Upgrade SKU's on March 31st in an effort to simplify the purchasing process. The demand to extend this was frankly unexpectedly high. We listened and decided to extend the Upgrade SKU availability through April 30th. You do not have to rush and can enjoy the entire Holiday weekend. We know that with 10.2.3 out, and FMX now part of PRO, many will rush anyway. I personally can't wait to get many, many more Cool Apps...

If you’re a parent like I am, you understand the feeling of comfort in knowing where your children are at all times and that they are safe. Modern smartphone technologies have provided parents and others to track the whereabouts of loved ones, but our Cool App for February, WhereontheMap, has taken that capability to the next level.

WhereontheMap -- based on Delphi -- is a simple, intuitive Android app that helps you keep an eye on your kids or helps companies support their fleet management systems. One of the cool things the developers of this app did was to use a mix of techniques to reduce power consumption so it doesn’t drain your phone battery like so many apps that run in the background. They utilize the accelerometers sensor which uses the least amount of current to detect motion of the device, and only when it detects motion the app turns on the more accurate localization sensor.

WhereontheMap is a great example of how you can combine some of the turn-key features of Delphi to create a useful app. Click here to download the app on Google Play.

Create Your Own Accelerometer Project

Cool App Contest

Interested in submitting for the Embarcadero’s Cool App contest? It’s open to any business or consumer application built with RAD Studio, Delphi or C++Builder. Embarcadero awards Cool App contest winners a $500 Amazon gift card and winning submissions are also highlighted on the company’s YouTube channel. For more information on the contest and a link to the submission form, click here.

As more small and home businesses continue to enter the marketplace, point of sale (POS) technologies have become a critical part of modern economy. I’m excited to report that one of the real innovators in this market, BeePOS, is the winner of Embarcadero’s Cool App contest for January. The industry buzz around this company has been tremendous (obligatory bee reference, check!), and we’re fully anticipating their adoption numbers to grow dramatically over the coming months.

BeePOS -- based on Delphi -- is a fully integrated, intuitive POS software that can be used for restaurants, bars and the hospitality industry. It’s flexibility allows retailers to use the software for front-end or backend POS, in multiple or single stores and on Windows, iOS, Android and macOS platforms.

I’ve seen a number of line-of-business applications like POS systems choose Delphi, which is an ideal solution because of the rapid application development model, first class database support and easy application maintenance. BeePOS is a great example of this with its customizable reporting system and sophisticated configuration. Using DataSnap to broker the data from the backend database to the client application creates a flexible and lightweight system.

Interested in submitting for the Embarcadero’s Cool App contest? It’s open to any business or consumer application built with RAD Studio, Delphi or C++Builder. Embarcadero awards Cool App contest winners a $500 Amazon gift card and winning submissions are also highlighted on the company’s YouTube channel. For more information on the contest and a link to the submission form, click here.

Modernization continues to be one of the most important topics for many of our customers. Delphi has been around for some time and there are plenty of great “legacy” apps going back all the way to Delphi 7. While it is a testament to the quality of our development frameworks, at some points ten-year-old apps are, well simply too old… Our community of developers are moving to the latest versions so that they can deliver modern, compelling products to their customers. Internally, we have been taking this same journey with the RAD Studio product itself, and while it is not always easy, it is worth the effort. I think that we are finally making a lot of progress, which emboldens me to share some lessons learned that may help you plan your own journey.

Update the UI

I think that the most difficult part of any Modernization project is the compelling argument for a UI update. There is one school of thought that says that if it works, who cares that an icon looks old. It is also difficult for developers to be very passionate about it, as they also frequently do not care about look and feel. Yet, an updated look and feel is HUGE. We have made many gradual updates to RAD Studio over the last two years and have a few more in store. When we do surveys, rarely does the look and feel get prioritized. Enterprise software customers rarely admit to buying a software solution because “it looks pretty”. But once UI improvements are made, the impact tends to be surprisingly high. Especially for Delphi apps that come with an inherent “legacy” bias. It is a fight worth fighting and fortunately some of the updated VCL and FMX tooling make implementations easier. Take your time and do it right. It is totally worth getting professional designer help (again something that many developers do not do). Be sure not to overlook the impact of nice high quality icons. Here are some examples of the icons that we used for 10.2.2. There are so many choices out there that are very inexpensive. I love www.icons8.com for example.

Do Mobile

One of the great advantages of Delphi today is FMX. As smartphone adoption increases (~70% by 2018), FMX will grow in relevance. If you know VCL, development with FMX is relatively natural. There are of course some styling and behavior specificities, and frankly we need to improve the RAD Studio workflow more, but the productivity is amazing. Most other approaches require a separate team and investment. Historically Mobile Apps were Outsourced as a package, but this is changing. FMX allows a Delphi team to build the Mobile App. You do not need to recreate the old app with FMX, but building meaningful mobile extensions is a must. You will gain immense respect and the Delphi tech will be perceived rightfully as Modern. And you get to build your team. There is a lot of training help to get you started. I personally like Delphi Styles that can deliver some very slick custom looks (below are a couple of great FMX style templates from www.delphistyles.com)

Make It “Multi-Tier”

Architecture is not simple. Unfortunately, even great developers may not have knowledge in other areas, simply because of the vast range of areas in software development. Sometimes this means making architectural changes such as moving from a desktop app to a multi-tier can be a learning experience for even the most experienced. It's always great to learn, or to get outside support to assist. We aim to make architectural transitions easy, such as how RAD Server comes with excellent Multi-Tier architecture support features. It is not a daunting task to rethink an old app into a Multi-Tier one, although there are no guarantees (depends how it was built). I have spoken with many developers that at first were very scared, but once they got deeper, found that the effort is far less than expected. For sure, it is hugely less expensive than re-platforming with a completing different language such as Java. Again, one simple approach is to start small and modularize as much as possible. Also, do not rush to lose the VCL client. The speed it can deliver, especially in sensitive environments where seconds matter, cannot be replicated. I am aware of at least several multi-million dollar Java rebuild efforts that aimed to replace a VCL app and users simply did not adopt it… incredible waste.

“Webify”

Not a word, but you get the meaning. There are many approaches to do this with Delphi today. Ideally, you can create a tiered app and build an independent Web Client. Of course, we recommend Ext JS, since it is part of the family now, but there are plenty other good client Web technologies. Another approach that may be faster is to use a tool like UniGui, which takes a VCL-like approach and leverages Ext JS to build a Web Client. That does not work for everything but is very fast and productive. You certainly can create a module of your app quickly and demonstrate that Delphi works well and fast with Web. Today many Web interfaces to Delphi apps are built with .NET because of the inherit Windows connection. That of course works, but based on our latest experience and the new JS technologies, the speed and flexibility you can get with JS are great.

Integrate

RAD Studio has some of the best Integration frameworks and components. One of the most challenging aspects of other technologies is typically integration, and we do it super well and fast. Our recent Product survey indicates that a huge percentage of our customers have adopted FireDAC, which is fantastic. Figure out new ways for your modern app to be more integrated. How about displaying inventory from an ERP or feeding into it? Our Enterprise Connectors are based on the FireDAC framework and work really well. We even use them internally to create an ExtJS portal to our SFDC instance (illustration below). It is a “wow!” development experience.

Innovate

Delphi, through RAD Studio, supports many new capabilities including Push Notifications, Beacons, and the Woll 2 Woll mobile editor (www.woll2woll.com/beam). It is surprising to me how little customers use new Windows 10 features, One of my favorite underutilized technology is Beacons. These are now included for FREE in RAD Studio Enterprise edition. The mobile editor can accelerate the mobile apps developed with this tech dramatically. Given how many internal Delphi apps deal with location data capture, this should be such an easy and nice feature to include. And the best thing about Delphi is that innovating does not need to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars…

Overcome the Legacy Argument

This one is not as relevant for our efforts with RAD Studio, but it is a hurdle that each client has to overcome. The perception that Delphi is legacy is still there, despite recent strides to overcome it. Lately, I’ve taken a slightly different approach, which I’ve found very successful. Instead of diving deep into defending Delphi’s many merits, I just state a few facts and brush it aside. It works! Delphi today is one of the larger commercial ecosystems - plenty of open source ones have lost momentum as economics have deteriorated and support dwindled. Not to mention the fact that Delphi is the fastest, easiest to use and most functional development tool (a little subjective, but true). Our VCL framework for Windows development continues to provide the most native support for MS Windows, and nothing beats it. FMX provides better native cross-platform support than Xamarin and its popularity, especially for Android development is growing rapidly. I think that for any company that wants to manage technology risk, Delphi and VCL are far safer choices than even the trendiest of technologies and frameworks out there. Just ask someone who has gone through the several iterations of Angular or spent a boat-load on a Java migration. The combination of a highly productive language that is reusable and can work with flexible front and back-ends make Delphi a strong technology contender.

Well, this got a bit longer than intended, but there is one point about Modernization that is perhaps the most difficult to overcome. It again has to do with perception rather than the technology. Customers continue to make the argument about the lack of availability of trained Delphi resources. Unfortunately, it is still true that there are fewer skilled Delphi developers compared to other popular technologies. Outsourcers are especially negative to these tools, as the productivity tends to go directly against their business model. Why sell you 5 Delphi developers when I can sell you 50 Java ones. But that is also the winning argument, you do not need that many Delphi developers – it is THAT good. And if you need to brush up on your skills or train a new team, we continue to develop Embarcadero Academy with more content and course options. In our experience a senior developer can pick-up Delphi super fast. Lets blow away technology sceptics with amazingly modern-looking apps!

Any developer knows how time-consuming it can be to come up with good graphics for multi-platform development. There are so many different device pixel densities that require different images. That’s why I’m excited to announce Embarcadero’s December Cool App winner, Petra, which makes it easy to take quality vector graphics from Sketch and turn them into natively drawn user interface elements for cross-platform Delphi apps.

Petra’s support for FireMonkey, Android, and iOS drawing APIs provides maximum flexibility in targeting different platforms. It’s one of those tools where using it once inspires you to want to use it more and more, and I have to admit, I’m addicted.

Petra easily moves between design and coding without ever needing to deploy 1x, 2x or 3x images in the final app. The tool also allows developers to create resolution-independent and scalable drawings with dynamic behavior, without the need for static rapid prototyping of UI Components.

When asked about his choice of languages, Petra developer Nader described Delphi as a “recipe of a great programming language plus RAD IDE plus ecosystem of third-party frameworks and components plus passionate community of supportive developers. All combined to enable developers to target multiple platforms from one code base, natively and beautifully.”

Cool Apps Contest

Interested in submitting for the Embarcadero’s Cool App contest? It’s open to any business or consumer application built with RAD Studio, Delphi or C++Builder. Embarcadero awards Cool App contest winners a $500 Amazon gift card and winning submissions are also highlighted on the company’s YouTube channel. For more information on the contest and a link to the submission form, click here.

A few years back we introduced our Update Subscription program. This approach to licensing was a response to dominant industry trends to move away from periodic Upgrades to ongoing Subscription relationships that deliver continuous value to customers. Our Product Roadmap and Release Strategy are aligned with this philosophy as we strive to make upgrades to new releases much easier. I don’t think that we will ever be perfect here, but we certainly will try.

We have many long-term passionate customers that are used to a certain way of purchasing our products. Therefore we retained the one-off Upgrades SKU (i.e. Purchase Option) for quite some time. Our experience is that customers love plenty of advanced notice to any changes. Many of you let us know this loud and clear, and we appreciate it.

Our goal is to make it easy for everyone to take advantage of the latest features and fixes we’ve developed. Today, most our customers moved to Update Subscription and the Upgrades SKU simply does not make as much sense. It is unnecessarily complex to maintain and we hear from multiple customers that with some of the more aggressive promotions, it makes purchasing decisions confusing. Pretty much all other vendors have discontinued that SKU for similar reasons.

This Quarter (ending on March 31st) will be the last to offer Upgrades. In keeping with our advance notices practice, we want to give plenty of time to customers who for any reason want to use the Upgrades SKU to do so. We ran several Amnesties (i.e. ability to Upgrade from older versions) in the last couple of years, and we will run one more as we retire this SKU. We will continue to offer easy paths to move to higher Editions, as we make both the Enterprise and Architect editions even more attractive for enterprise application development. It is not a huge change, but nevertheless, we want to minimize surprises. If you have been on the fence about Upgrading your old version, now will be a good time and remember that you get your first year of Update Subscription included.

Together, we made great strides in popularizing RAD Studio for Delphi and C++ development. We carefully monitor competitive offerings and we strongly believe that the value customers receive with our products is far superior to the cost. I hope you feel the same way. We are committed to continue investing in our products to make your ROI calculations a “no-brainer”. I am really excited about some of the upcoming releases. Both 10.2.3, this quarter, and the many releases in the quarters to come, will deliver some awesome functionality and quality improvements. 2018 be another year that sees the momentum of Delphi and C++ Builder increase - Go RAD Studio!!!

As always, feel free to reach out to me any time directly. We love hearing from customers who deeply care about our products.

I’m always pleasantly surprised by the variety of projects people come up with using Embarcadero tools, and our November Cool App winner is no exception. InfoTrain -- developed by Damian Skrzek using Delphi -- is an application that helps railway enthusiasts locate and discuss interesting trains.

When users notice interesting trains, they can add detailed information in the app that can be sorted and filtered by various details. “Railfans,” or “trainspotters,” can filter by the type of traction, region, railway line and many other features. Users can comment or update listings by adding photos or timely information about the current location of a train.

InfoTrain connects to a remote MySQL database via a PHP API to synchronize data between users. The app is currently available on all Android devices, with an iPhone version in the works.

InfoTrain is a perfect example of an enthusiast who was able to develop an app that scratches his own specific itch. The great thing is that Damian could then make that app available to all the other people who share his interest. Using a PHP API to connect to a MySQL backend is a creative solution to data sharing and shows the flexibility of Delphi.

When asked about his choice of languages, Damian said “Delphi is a friendly environment for beginners, powerful at the same time for advanced users. Great for creating cross-platform applications. Generally, Delphi is my favorite language.”

Interested in submitting for the Embarcadero’s Cool App contest? It’s open to any business or consumer application built with RAD Studio, Delphi or C++Builder. Embarcadero awards Cool App contest winners a $500 Amazon gift card and winning submissions are also highlighted on the company’s YouTube channel. For more information on the contest and a link to the submission form, click here.